On Wednesday, March 8th, the real estate market was hit with the news that the draft amendment to the Spatial Planning and Development Act (the " Draft ") had been adopted by the Council of Ministers. Admittedly, we are still waiting for the final text of the Draft, which will be submitted to the Sejm, which makes analyzing the planned changes much more difficult. This is especially true since today, somewhat perversely, we want to focus on the final provisions and indicate when the most important changes will come into effect. Since we are preparing for these changes, it's good to know how much time remains to apply the current regulations.
In principle, the Bill will enter into force 30 days after its publication . However, the drafters took into account the broad scope of the amendment and therefore postponed the entry into force of selected provisions, as discussed below.
Changes from 1 January 2025
The changes, which are scheduled to take effect on January 1, 2025, are more technical in nature. They involve expanding spatial data generated for local plans to include information on the spatial location of areas with different purposes or different development principles, as well as building lines in vector format in the national spatial reference system.
Changes after 12 months from the date of announcement
We do not know exactly when, but 12 months from the date of announcement, an amendment is planned to Article 61 of the Spatial Planning and Development Act, consisting in adding paragraph 1a regarding an additional requirement when obtaining a decision on development conditions for industrial or warehouse development (which constitute projects that may always or potentially have a significant impact on the environment) regarding the impossibility of obtaining the above decision in a situation where the analyzed area includes buildings with a residential function, in whole or in part.
Therefore, we would like to point out that the new provisions, excluding Article 61, paragraph 1a, shall apply to proceedings for the issuance of decisions on development conditions initiated after the entry into force of the Draft and not completed within 12 months. At the same time, in accordance with Article 59, paragraph 4 of the Draft, Article 61, paragraph 1a shall not apply to matters concerning the issuance of development conditions initiated and not completed with a final decision before the date of entry into force of this provision. This means that this provision will only apply to proceedings initiated after its entry into force.
Changes from 1 January 2026
Many changes will come into effect on January 1, 2026. First, the Urban Planning Register, introduced into the Spatial Planning and Development Act in Chapter 5B (item 61) of the Draft, will come into effect. This Register will be maintained by the relevant minister for construction, spatial planning and development, and housing, where information and data related to spatial planning and development, including spatial data, will be published. Many of the changes in the Draft that will come into effect include the addition of provisions related to the inclusion of data in this Register. Furthermore, this also means that, from January 1, 2026, anyone interested will be able to submit an application (Article 8f) to the minister for construction, spatial planning and development, and housing for the minister to forward information about data published in the Urban Planning Register (Article 67d) to the email address provided by the applicant. At the same time, in connection with the introduction of the Urban Planning Register (which includes information and data derived from decisions on development conditions), as of 1 January 2026, the obligation for the commune head, mayor or city president to provide the voivodeship marshal with a copy of the decision on development conditions, resulting from Article 57, paragraph 4 of the Spatial Planning and Development Act, is abolished.
Due to the change of the study of conditions and directions of spatial development of the commune into a general plan, the procedure for adopting the general plan (formerly the study) has also changed, which, however, does not differ significantly from the current procedure (planned wording of Article 13 and Section 3 of the Act).
From 2026, a change in the land development plan for the large-scale retail facility and the renewable energy sources not installed on the building located
a) on agricultural land of classes I-III and forest land,
b) on class IV agricultural land with an installed electrical capacity exceeding 150 kW or used for business activities in the field of electricity generation,
c) on land other than those indicated in letters a and b, with an installed electrical capacity exceeding 1000 kW, may only take place on the basis of a local plan.
A significant change, effective from 1 January 2026, will be the new Article 64c, which stipulates that a decision on development conditions expires five years after it becomes final. Furthermore, a transitional provision – Article 62 of the Draft – states that Article 64c of the Spatial Planning and Development Act does not apply to decisions on development conditions that became final before the entry into force of this provision. As we recently noted, this is a newly introduced amendment, so it's possible that further changes may occur to this provision and its entry into force.
Finally, we would like to point out another very important change concerning the Act of 5 July 2018 on Facilitating the Preparation and Implementation of Housing Investments and Accompanying Investments, which, according to the Draft, expires on 31 December 2025. The regulations concerning investment implementation will apply from 1 January 2026. Also important in this context is the transitional provision – Article 74 of the Draft, which specifies that resolutions determining the location of housing or accompanying investments remain in force and that the existing regulations apply to them. We will discuss this in more detail in a separate article.
At this point, we would also like to point out that the Draft under review has not been updated in every respect, but we hope we have correctly interpreted the drafters' intentions in this regard. However, there is no doubt that many changes are being prepared, coming into effect at different times, although the most significant ones will be implemented first.
Typically, transitional provisions are analyzed alongside the final provisions. However, there are so many of them that we'll reserve them for a separate article or two. Next week, we'll return to the very beginning of the Project and analyze both the new and amended statutory definitions.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice.
Legal status as of March 13, 2023
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